November 1997

 

• Alderman Library opens exhibition on the "Tibetan Book of the Dead," highlighting the University's collection of scrolls and other artifacts.

• At his fall address to students and parents, President John T. Casteen III points to "the great divide between academic life and social life" on Grounds, and urges "an ambitious initiative to help build intellectual community at the University."

• Larry Flynt and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, above, debate the value of freedom of expression in the Law School's Caplin Auditorium.

• Ten Harrison Awards recognizing outstanding contributions to the University by faculty and administrators are announced. University alumnus David A. Harrison III funded the awards to recognize those who sustain and enhance the University's national stature.

• At the dedication of Casa Bolivar, the University's Spanish language and culture dormitory, Venezuelan ambassador Pedro Luis Echevarria unveils a plaque commemorating Fernando Bolivar as a student here in 1827.

 

December 1997

• The Health Sciences Center is the first University unit to pass the $100 million mark in the University's Capital Campaign. The goal for Health Sciences is raised from $140 million to $160 million.

• Fourth-year student Micah J. Schwartzman receives a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University. Since the awards were first established in 1904, forty-two Rhodes scholars have been named at U.Va., more than at any other state-supported university.

• The letters of John Dos Passos are donated to U.Va's special collections department by his widow, Elizabeth Dos Passos, completing the University Library's collection of his manuscripts.

• The University's Combined Virginia/United Way campaign exceeds both last year's campaign total and this year's goal, raising $330,000 for local service organizations.

 

January 1998

 

William H. Gray, President of the United Negro College Fund, spoke at the University's celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

• The Department of Music hosts a celebration in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King's achievements. The event includes music, dance, oratory and song.

• Businessman and philanthropist John W. Kluge donates more than 1,500 objects from his collection of twentieth century aboriginal art to the University, including works on paper, wood, canvas and bark.

• Award-winning Native American writer Simon Ortiz and poet Michael Harper speak to students as part of the Rea Visiting Writer Program.

• The University of Virginia Library publishes the historic Holsinger photographic archive on-line, documenting life at the University and in central Virginia from the late nineteenth century to the early 1920s.

• President John T. Casteen III is named president-elect of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, one of six regional accreditation authorities in the United States.

February 1998

• The Board of Visitors raises the University's Capital Campaign goal from $750 million to $1 billion as the University joins a select group of public schools seeking this level of private support.

• IBM and U.Va. announce an alliance to speed the integration of information technology into the University's teaching and research.

Executive Vice President and CFO Leonard W. Sandridge and IBM executive John Kelly authorize the IBM-U.Va. technology alliance.

• Curry School dean David W. Breneman and University president John T. Casteen III are named by the American Association of Higher Education among the nation's top educators.

New board members Joseph F. Wolfe, Timothy R. Robertson, and Benjamin P.A. Warthen join newly elected Rector John P. Ackerly III (third from left)

• Governor Gilmore names three new members to the Board of Visitors. Hovey S. Dabney steps down after serving as rector for six years. John P. Ackerly III is elected the new rector of the University.

• The Board of Visitors approves plans for a new parking deck at Scott Stadium and additional seating to accommodate a total of 60,000 spectators. Carl W. Smith's 1997 lead gift (a $25 million challenge grant) kicked off the fund-raising effort for the $75 million stadium addition.

 

March 1998

 

• Edgar A. Starke Jr., the former dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, is elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

• Poets Gregory Orr and Rita Dove, novelists George Garrett and John Casey are among U.Va. faculty participating in the Virginia Festival of the Book held on the Grounds and in Charlottesville.

• President Casteen outlines four new planning initiatives for the next century to improve support for science and engineering, the fine and performing arts, public service, and international initiatives in his State of the University address at Cabell Hall.

• University history professor Julian Bond is selected as national chair of the NAACP. Bond, a leader in the civil rights movement and former Georgia state legislator, teaches and conducts research on the history of civil rights.

• The Curry School of Education receives national recognition for programs using technology in the classroom. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education awards the school its first Best Practice Award at a national meeting.

• Seventeen professors and four graduate teaching assistants are honored in a ceremony celebrating excellence in teaching. Louis Bloomfield, professor of physics, and Michael Klarman, professor of law, receive SCHEV teaching awards. Farzaneh Milani, professor of Persian language and literature, is honored with the Distinguished Professor Award. Edmund P. Russell III wins the Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award.

 

April 1998

 

• Charles Wright, U.Va. professor of English, receives the 1998 Pulitzer prize for his recent collection of poems Black Zodiac.

• Renowned poet Adrienne Rich, right, reads her work to wide acclaim in the Culbreth Theatre.

• Ken Kesey, right, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, speaks in connection with an exhibition in Alderman Library on "The Psychedelic 60s."

• Yahoo! Internet Life magazine names U.Va. among the nation's top twenty "techno-savvy" schools. Wired classrooms, the outstanding quality of the University's Web sites, and the quality and range of computer classes offered are among the citations for excellence.

• Senior vice president and University Professor Ernest H. Ern is named the recipient of the University's Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award.

• Former U.S. Sen. Alan K. Simpson and former dean of the School of Architecture Jaquelin Taylor Robertson (pictured below with President Casteen) receive the 1998 Thomas Jefferson awards in Law and Architecture during U.Va.'s Founder's Day ceremonies.

• Dean of Students Robert Canevari announces his retirement next year after thirty-three years at the University.

• NASA space shuttle flight Columbia includes rats from a study of spatial memory conducted by neuroscience department chair Dr. Oswald Steward.

 

May 1998

 

• 4,291 women and men cross the Lawn for the last time as students. Just the day before they had listened to actor and spinal cord research advocate Christopher Reeve, left, deliver the Valedictory address, urging students to "find out what really excites and motivates you, and pursue it." The next day, degree candidates heard Gov. James Gilmore (Col '71, Law '77), inset, tell them "your education, your liberty, and your duty go hand in hand."

• U.Va. historians Lenard R. Berlanstein and Nelson Lichtenstein receive Guggenheim Fellowships for their research achievements.

• Thomas A. Saunders III and Jordan Saunders (shown above with President Casteen) and daughter Calvert establish the Saunders Challenge to endow professorships in the schools of architecture, education, and nursing. In less than two weeks, all three schools find benefactors to meet the challenge, creating nine new endowed chairs.

• The Faculty Forum for Scientific Research, chaired by microbiologist David L. Brautigan, celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

• Elizabeth K. Meyer, chair of landscape architecture, is honored by the Women Faculty and Professional Association at its annual awards luncheon as their Woman of Achievement for 1998.

 

June 1998

 

• Record attendance of 4,000 at Reunions Weekend indicates the highest number of returning alumni ever, with more than 20 percent participation from the Class of 1988.

• The Women's Center selects Elaine T. Jones, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the first black woman to graduate from U.Va's Law School, for the Distinguished Alumna Award

• The University's first undergraduate Faculty and Staff Scholarship is awarded to Angela M. Ashby, the daughter of a University employee.

• The Faculty Senate selects thirty-nine teaching initiatives to receive funding from the provost's office. They represent a wide range of interests -- from creating electronic archives to new workshops for graduate teaching assistants.

• Plans are unveiled for a new underground Special Collections Library to house the University's world-class rare books and manuscripts collection. Construction is expected to begin in the year 2000.

• History officer and psychology professor Raymond C. Bice Jr., right, retires after fifty years of service at U.Va.

• Senator John Warner (Law '53) announces federal funding of $1 million for a "Groundswalk" to connect North Grounds and Central Grounds of the University. Funding will go toward construction of a bridge over Emmet Street for pedestrians, cyclists and light transportation.

 

July 1998

 

• Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate and Commonwealth Professor of English, appears in a public television special performance with composer John Williams and violinist Joshua Bell (above) in an evening of poetry and music with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

• U.S. News & World Report acknowledges excellence in seven medical specialties at the University Medical Center. The University of Virginia hospital is one of only 132 hospitals in the nation to be distinguished. The School of Medicine is now ranked 27th nationally.

• Clinch Valley College announces a sister institution agreement with Istanbul University, Turkey's most prestigious institution of higher learning.

• The Board of Visitors approves the University's new operating budgetof $1.09 billion. This is a 3.5 percent increase over last year's figure and is attributed to state-mandated salary increases and cost of technology enhancements.

 

August 1998

 

• Nearly three thousand incoming students are welcomed by President Casteen as the Class of 2002. Just under 80 percent come from the top tenth of their high school class and a record 4.5 percent are from overseas.

• Work is under way on a Modern Media studies program that will include the Robertson Media Center in Clemons Library, funded by a $1.2 million gift from Timothy B. and Lisa Nelson Robertson.

• The University-wide program working to address Year 2000 computer readiness, reports its work is well ahead of schedule.

• Philip D. Zelikow assumes the directorship of the Miller Center for Public Affairs, replacing Kenneth Thompson, who served as the center's director since 1978.

 

September 1998

 

• Coretta Scott King, founder and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, speaks on race relations and human rights to a packed auditorium.

• Anita K. Jones, University Professor of computer science in the School of Engineering, is appointed to the National Science Board, which oversees the policies of the National Science Foundation.

• Jonathan D. Moreno is appointed the Medical Center's new director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics.

• President Casteen's University-wide retreat is held to discuss the formation of the planning commissions.

• U.Va. is ranked number one for the fifth consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report (in a tie this year with Berkeley) as the best public university in the country.

• Sylvia V. Terry, associate dean of African-American affairs, and Patricia M. Lampkin, associate vice president for student affairs (pictured above), are named recipients of the first Elizabeth Zintl Leadership Awards.

• The U.Va. Medical Center is selected as the site for a clinical study of new laser treatments to treat coronary artery disease.

 

October 1998

 

• Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement and later Polish head of state, visits the University to inaugurate the Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at the Miller Center for Public Affairs.

• The University's Capital Campaign reaches the three-quarter mark toward its new $1 billion goal.

• The Board of Visitors approves designs for a new $41 million biomedical engineering and medical science research building.

• The drama department sponsors the eleventh annual Festival of American Film featuring "cool" culture as depicted in the movies.

• A memorial service is held for Dr. Edward W. Hook Jr., founder of the humanities in medicine program and former chair of internal medicine.

November 1998

 

• The Dalai Lama and Jody Williams (pictured above) join Desmond Tutu, Oscar Arias Sanchez, and five other Nobel Peace Laureates at a historic two-day conference, "Bringing Hearts and Minds Together," at the University of Virginia. Students meet with the leaders at afternoon class sessions held around the Grounds.

• The University's biomedical engineering department receives a $10.5 million grant from the Whitaker Foundation to study cardiovascular disease.